


Dark

by sunshineinthestorm



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: F/M, Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-30
Updated: 2015-08-30
Packaged: 2018-04-18 01:53:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4687964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunshineinthestorm/pseuds/sunshineinthestorm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It was a dark day in Camp Half-Blood's long history. The Stoll brothers were on a pranking mission: They'd made a list, and no one – demigod, mortal, or monster – could stop them from completing it."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dark

It was a dark day in Camp Half-Blood's long history.

The Stoll brothers were on a pranking  _mission_ :They'd made a list, and no one – demigod, mortal, or monster – could stop them from completing it. As one o'clock rolled around, they were happily looking at the checks that marked their various successes.

Nico's hair had mysteriously turned hot pink while he slept, and no matter how much dye he used, it  _refused_  to go back to its normal ink-black color.

Percy was hiding in his cabin to get away from the Aphrodite girls and tree nymphs that were swarming him.

Annabeth would've done anything to go help him, but when she stepped out of  _her_  cabin door, an extremely thick book flew out of nowhere, and she had to duck to avoid a nasty concussion.

Nyssa's favorite hammer was encased in a giant block of Jell-o, and the second she'd seen it, she'd run out of that workshop like she was being chased by fifty hellhounds. No one knew how the Stolls had found out about her pathological fear of wiggly half-liquid orange solids.

And that was just the beginning. Connor and Travis happily went down the list, high-fiving each other and laughing whenever they came across a particularly good one.

"Ha, that was a great idea, Travis! Will never saw it coming!"

"Lou Ellen will have nightmares for a week, dude!"

"Not even Chiron can stop us now!"

"Connor, this is  _epic_. Before you know it, we'll be-" And then Travis stopped abruptly, staring at something on the paper.

"What? Did I write down something without your approval? Did we skip one? Did we – Oh." Connor finally realized what Travis was looking at. The last line on the page read,  _Put worms in all of Katie's siblings' hair so that they come crying to her and she's too busy to stop us. And if that doesn't work, throw a stink bomb in her cabin_. "We should've put that first, huh? She's been yelling at us for like the last  _hour_. We'd better get on that." Connor stood up.

Travis snapped out of it. "What? No, that's not what I-"

Connor sighed. "Okay, yes, if you  _really_  want to, I'll let you carry this one out alone."

"No, man, you don't get it!" Travis jumped up too, so that he stood an inch or so taller than the younger Stoll brother. He looked down at him angrily for a second; then he abruptly turned around so that Connor couldn't see his face. This confused the younger Stoll brother. It was not normal Travis behavior.

"What? What is it, then? I know it's not that original, but by the time I got to Katie my genius was running a little low, and it  _will_  get the job done…"

"No, no,  _no_ , you're  _wrong_. It's… The prank isn't the problem, Connor. It's the person we're  _pranking_."

Connor didn't get it at first. And then the truth sank in all at once. He grabbed Travis's shoulder and spun him back around, staring at him searchingly. He didn't like what he saw and stumbled backwards in shock, falling onto a lower bunk. "No, no, no,  _this cannot be happening to me_ …" He put his head in his hands. "Why do dynamic duos never last? Fred and George: Fred died. Batman and Robin: Robin died. I always thought I'd be the one to break this one – die heroically while fighting ten drakons at once or something. But this…  _this_  is stone-cold  _betrayal_. How could you  _do_  this to me, Stoll?"

"It's not the end of the world, dude!" Travis pleaded. "I'm still perfectly capable of pulling pranks. Give me Harley, or Malcolm, or Clarisse, or – heck, give me  _all_  of the Hunters of Artemis at once, and I'll hit them so fast they'll never see it coming. It's just  _Katie_ , Connor. We just have to lay off  _Katie_."

"And her entire freaking  _cabin_ , Stoll! That drops like a  _third_  of our material!"

"Then we'll just have to modify the material." Connor hated how calm Travis was being about the whole thing. Stolls were only this stubborn when they were  _sure_. Connor didn't want Travis to be _sure_. He wanted Travis to be easily persuaded into changing his mind. Stubborn was bad. Stubborn was  _really_  bad.

"Come on, man. You can't do this to us. We have a  _reputation_  to uphold! We can't just lay off an entire  _cabin_!"

"Maybe I don't care about our reputation anymore!" Travis yelled. "Maybe I don't care if our reputation changes! Maybe I don't care if I think Katie is the greatest girl in the world and  _I like her!_   _I like her, Stoll!_ " He was quiet for a moment. Then he said, slightly quieter, "There, I said it. I like her, Connor, and there's nothing you can do to change that."

Connor almost wanted to cry. Travis Stoll – half of the greatest pranking team in Camp Half-Blood history –  _liked_  Katie Gardner. He liked one of their main targets.

These were dark days indeed.


End file.
